


The Doctor, the Flute, and the Library

by AuroraCloud



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Flirting, Kissing, Libraries, M/M, Musical Instruments, Pre-Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 15:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16789933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraCloud/pseuds/AuroraCloud
Summary: In which the Doctor isn’t, strictly speaking, supposed to travel in time and space, and Jack approves of secret library wings.My entry for the Winter Companions Summer/Winter Holidays 2018 challenge, which I'd forgotten to post on the archive before this.





	The Doctor, the Flute, and the Library

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Winter Companions](http://wintercompanion.dreamwidth.org) Summer/Winter Holidays 2018 challenge, and for some reason I didn't get around to posting it on AO3 before now. Or rather, I'd created a draft but not posted it.
> 
> Written for the prompt: _Athena/wanders/a flute/inside a university library_
> 
> Vaguely spoilerish for parts of S10 of modern Doctor Who, if you haven't happened to see it yet.
> 
> Thanks to unfeathered for beta-reading!

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and looked at his office clock. There, only a minute after he had left. Nobody would ever know. See, he was practically keeping his word to guard her body for a thousand years. What counted was that he was there all the time. Not if he occasionally spent a few days in 18th century Vienna or thereabouts in between the ’all the time’. 

This university was pretty decent. He’d have to get a better office, though. Something befitting a proper university professor who knew everything about everything. Polished wooden furniture, bookshelves, that sort of thing. Occasional glass boxes for mementos, like the flute he was holding.

He’d probably have to leave out the notes about the origins of the pieces, though. After all, it might attract unwanted academic attention if an eccentric Professor in Bristol possessed a flute that Mozart had had. More precisely, a Sha-Kar flute. A flute which he strictly speaking didn’t have, because strictly speaking he wasn’t using the TARDIS to leave this time period, and so strictly speaking he couldn’t have gone to 18th century Vienna and rescued a certain Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Sha-Kar time-art criminals attempting to influence the history of European music by luring him away with a real magic flute. Or rather, simply a Sha-Kar flute which was, for all 18th century earthly purposes, a magic flute

Now he’d just have to take a quick visit to the library before he put the flute back into its storage in the TARDIS.

One of the reasons the Doctor had chosen this university to grace with his lectures and his presence was that it had an excellent library. A proper old one, with books ranging from across the centuries, nooks and crannies to get lost in, high vaulted ceilings, a mummy in a display case. It also included a severe librarian called Athena. She was exactly what you should expect from someone named Athena by her middle-class parents, and came equipped with excellent horn-rimmed glasses, a stern bun and an indomitable knowledge of books. The Doctor enjoyed exchanging banter with her and watching her frighten the students who skulked among the bookshelves looking for a place to study. He also enjoyed playing cards with her, and, on occasion, they would drink sherry and recite Lewis Carroll together. 

Most importantly, Athena had allowed him to install a secret wing in the library. ”Why, every respectable library should have a secret wing,” she had said, sounding pleased as punch. ”It’s almost as necessary as a ghost.”

She had never elaborated on the ghost.

The Doctor, in turn, had never elaborated on just how he hid his very-secret-indeed wing. Perception filters were handy. 

He had a vast library inside the TARDIS, of course. But he’d realized that if he intended to settle down, he was exceedingly likely to come into contact with people with all kinds of odd interests, and he couldn’t go into a police box every time he had to consult a book. Besides, hey, he needed something to show off if he couldn’t make a police box vanish in front of people’s eyes. And so his books on alien musicology were among those he had transferred into his admittedly fancy library wing. 

He regretted slightly that he hadn’t dared to bring Mozart to his TARDIS. The fellow would surely have appreciated his guitar. But the history of European music would probably not have survived the encounter.

He was only a few shelves into the library when Athena intercepted him. She was looking frightfully stern and competent, as she tended to. ”Excuse me, Doctor, but I thought I should let you know right away. You have a visitor.”

”Oh? Who?”

Athena’s lip curled in a manner suggesting equal parts disapproval and amusement. ”He didn’t give me his name. Said you’ll find out.”

”Oh.” That sounded ominous.

”For what it’s worth, he tried to flirt with me,” Athena added. ”And with the janitor.”

”Ah.” Less ominous, then. ”I think I know who he is.” 

”I’m glad to hear you only have one such acquaintance,” Athena said. ”Anyway, he went that way.” She nodded towards the forest of bookshelves in front of him. ”Maybe you’ll find him in the erotic poetry section.”

”I wasn’t aware you had an erotic poetry section.” Well, he hadn’t exactly looked for one, he had to admit.

”We don’t,” Athena replied. ”But I’m sure he’ll find it anyway.”

Well, from whichever point of his timeline Jack was, he still clearly had his spirit intact, the Doctor thought, as he searched inside the library for the strange time disturbance that was Jack. It was the presence of the books that made it harder to navigate. Old books. Made time bend strangely in this place anyway. 

Since he didn’t know where to go, he found himself walking towards his secret section. That was where he’d been going anyway, to look up information about the flute. 

”Well, hello there.”

The Doctor wasn’t easily startled, as a rule. But usually he was the one appearing seeming out of nowhere and grinning at people.

He scowled at Jack. ”Hiding in my perception filter is against the rules.” 

”What rules?” Jack stepped right into his personal space. ”You just made that up.” He leant so close the Doctor could feel his breath against his face. 

The Doctor did his best to appear unruffled. The problem was that Jack still smelled amazing. Really, after nine hundred and eighty-odd years of knowing the man, he ought to be used to it. Must be something that affected Gallifreyan genes particularly. 

”There’s no point in telling you rules,” the Doctor retorted. ”You’d just break them to spite me.”

”Not to spite you, no,” Jack answered, eyes boring into his suggestively. He leaned even more forward, probably seeking a kiss.

The Doctor stepped back to clear his head. In this body, a part of his game with Jack was to appear unaffected until he couldn’t resist any longer. Whereas in his previous incarnation he’d thrown himself wildly into any experiment Jack thought to suggest to him — in delightful defiance of the tense relationship they’d had in his tenth incarnation — now everything was about him being in charge, and Jack trying its darndest to make him do what he wanted. It always ended up with Jack backed to the wall, literally as often as figuratively. 

”What are you doing here?”

Jack pursed his lips. ”What, no ’hello Jack, nice to see you?’” 

The Doctor merely raised his eyebrows. 

”I wanted to see you,” Jack said, shrugging. ”A fancy place you’ve got here.” His gaze wandered suggestively along the shelves. 

”Well, it’s not mine, strictly speaking.”

”You’re staying, though.” It wasn’t a question. Jack gazed levelly at the Doctor. ”I talked to the delightfully scary librarian lady. You’ve been around for a while, and you’re staying. Lectures and everything.”

The Doctor shrugged nonchalantly. ”Why shouldn’t I stay?”

”You never stay in one place for long. Why here?” All the flirtation had gone out of Jack now. It was as though he sensed it was something unusually important. 

The Doctor couldn’t tell him — he just couldn’t do that to Jack, let him see again the lengths to which the Doctor would gave for a chance to save the Master’s soul. Well, Missy’s. But however she styled herself, she was still the Master, and Jack wouldn’t forget it. The vault down below had to stay between the Doctor and Nardole. 

But he couldn’t lie to Jack, either. So he just looked back at him, using the stern eyebrows to the best effect he could. ”It doesn’t matter. Not to you. I mustn’t talk about it, and you don’t need to know.”

”But —”

The Doctor pressed his hand on Jack’s mouth to shut him up. ”Do you trust me?” He freed Jack’s mouth, noting absent-mindedly that his mouth still felt pleasant to touch. 

Jack glared at him for a while, but seemed to recognize and understand the expression on his face. ”Only if you’ll kiss me.”

”All right,” the Doctor said, closed the distance between them and kissed Jack. Jack kissed him back, with enthusiasm.

With all his centuries, Jack still had the hot, hungry mouth of a human, and the Doctor enjoyed getting lost in it, more than he could have once imagined. 

Jack pulled back from a kiss to say: ”Well, if it’s making you build a secret library… I approve of that.”

The Doctor kissed him for a few moments longer, then said: ”I didn’t know you to were so interested in libraries.”

”Hey, now. Just because I’m sexy and charismatic doesn’t mean I never read. Besides, they can be put into all sorts of uses.” Suddenly the Doctor found himself pressed to a bookshelf, and Jack’s hands were all over him. 

Negotiating the territory of touch had been a challenge since his regeneration. But he found that it was the easiest with Jack, and by now it was old and familiar. He didn’t need to ask what Jack was hiding from him by his embraces; Jack’s touch was more honest than his face, and spoke more than Jack was willing to say in words. 

His arms naturally lifted to wrap around Jack’s back — except that one of his hands was still holding the flute, and he poked Jack’s back with it. Jack stopped kissing and caressing him, and said: ”Ow.”

”Sorry,” the Doctor said. He disentangled himself the best he could. He meant to simply put the flute away and continue with the kissing and hugging business, as he had rather been enjoying it and really, it had been a while. But Jack caught his hand in his own, and looked at the flute, frowning.

”Is that a Sha-Kar flute?”

”As a matter of fact, it is.”

Jack held out his hand, and the Doctor put the flute in his. Always a good idea to tap into Jack’s knowledge of things — he had centuries' worth of memory, too. Jack turned the flute around in his hand, checking out its shape and the little red-and-blue markings at the base. ”Is it a Sha-Kar flute from the Federative Museum’s Most Prized Collection, stolen about 800 years from now?”

”Well, I wouldn’t know if it was,” the Doctor admitted. ”I just got it from Mozart.”

Jack rolled his eyes, unable or unwilling to hold back a delighted grin. ”You’ll have to tell me that story.”

”Perhaps I will. Do you think we should return it to Sha-Kar? Just in case?”

”That could be an idea,” Jack said. ”They’re willing to tear apart space and time for it. You know how they are about music. They actually sort of sent me to chase the person they thought had stolen it. But I lost her trail 42 years from now, and then I found you and got distracted.” 

”Well. In that case. Maybe you should return it.” The Doctor bravely held back his disappointment. He had been looking forward to keeping Jack for a while. But he wasn’t going to keep Jack from more important tasks just because he might be getting a little lonely here.

”Well, maybe I should.” Jack didn’t move, though. Instead, he continued turning the flute around in his hand, and finally said, very deliberately: ”I didn’t get a really good look at the holos, though. This might not be it. And if it’s an ordinary Sha-Kar flute, you might be able to assert a finder’s right to it, especially if it was on Earth. It’s kind of on your watch, you know.”

”I don’t really need to keep it, though,” the Doctor said.

Jack looked disappointed. It slowly dawned on the Doctor what Jack might really want.

”But I suppose they could still use my knowledge of how I acquired it, though. To trace its history and the like.”

Jack brightened immediately. ”That’s right! And if it’s got a Mozart connection, they’ll definitely need to know about that.”

”Right. Well, that settles it, then.” The Doctor squeezed Jack’s shoulder affectionately. Then he remembered. ”Except… I’m not supposed to leave this place and time.”

”Oh. How did you meet Mozart, then?”

”Well…”

Jack raised his eyebrows. ”You do have a time machine. You can be back right after you left. You’ll never have been gone, really.”

”Yes. Probably.” The Doctor could feel his resolve weakening. 

And Jack kept looking at him with an enticing glint in those blue eyes of his. The glimmer of adventure. 

”You’re bad for me,” the Doctor admonished him.

”I’m only reminding you of who you are,” Jack replied, and stepped out from between the shelves with a spring in his step. 

”Exactly,” the Doctor muttered, but followed him.

On his way out, he passed by Athena’s desk. She was advising a student of logic, but spared him an eloquently eyebrowed glance. The Doctor wondered how obvious it was that they’d been kissing. Probably Jack’s triumphant smile told it all.

”If Nardole comes back while I’m gone,” the Doctor told her, ”tell him I’ve gone out with a friend.”


End file.
